RETAIL
Tesco reports sales growth
Tesco, Britain’s biggest retailer, yesterday reported a second successive quarter of UK underlying sales growth, the first time it has done so in more than five years. Tesco said sales at stores in its home market that have been open for more than a year rose 0.3 percent in the 13 weeks to May 28, its fiscal first quarter. That compared with analysts’ forecasts of flat to up 0.5 percent and built on growth of 0.9 percent in the previous quarter — its first quarter of UK underlying sales growth for more than three years.
BANKING
Former banker pleads guilty
A former Credit Suisse AG banker on Wednesday pleaded guilty in US District Court in Virginia to charges of helping US taxpayers evade income taxes, the US Department of Justice said. Michele Bergantino, 48, a citizen of Italy and resident of Switzerland, admitted that from 2002 to 2009, while working for Credit Suisse in Switzerland, he participated in a wide-ranging conspiracy to aid US taxpayers in concealing assets and income in secret Swiss bank accounts, the department said.
SHIPPING
S Korean firm seeks alliance
Hyundai Merchant Marine Co, South Korea’s second-biggest container liner, is seeking to join the world’s largest shipping alliance. The company has started talks to join a grouping known as 2M, which is led by AP Moeller-Maersk A/S and Mediterranean Shipping Co (MSC), it said yesterday. Joining the alliance will help Hyundai Merchant reduce costs and improve its competitiveness, the Seoul-based company said in the statement. It will also enable Maersk and MSC to bolster their services on trans-Pacific routes, the company said.
BANKING
UBS legal fight ends
UBS Group AG has ended a legal fight with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), agreeing to hand over records on a US client’s account in Singapore as US authorities seek to move beyond Switzerland in their fight against offshore tax evasion. The IRS on Feb. 23 asked a federal judge in Miami to force UBS to produce documents on Hsiaw Ching-ye, who lives in China. UBS last month reached an agreement with the IRS and has handed over all the records sought by the US, according to a court filing.
FASHION
Mayhoola eyes fashion label
Qatari private investment company Mayhoola investment fund, owner of the Valentino brand, confirmed that it is set to acquire French luxury fashion label Balmain, the company said in a statement on Wednesday. Mayhoola gave no financial details, but sources on Tuesday said that Mayhoola would pay more than 460 million euros (US$523 million). The deal marks the end of months of negotiations between the Qataris and Balmain investors.
SINGAPORE
Inflation rate declines
Consumer prices fell more than forecast last month, extending a record slump that was triggered by falling oil and house prices. The inflation rate declined 1.6 percent from a year ago after dropping 0.5 percent in April, Statistics Singapore said yesterday. The headline inflation rate is forecast to remain negative for the rest of the year, it said. The bank’s core inflation measure, which strips out accommodation and transport costs, rose 1 percent last month.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained